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Berlin Airlift Legacy

A Last-Ditch Effort to Save Tempelhof

By Patrick McGroarty in Berlin

For years, Berlin has been wrangling over what to do with the Nazi-built Tempelhof Airport in the heart of the city. The site, made famous during the Berlin Airlift, is slated to be shut down. But an April referendum may put a crimp in those plans.

Its history is well known: Built by the Nazis as a cornerstone of the never-realized Third Reich capital Germania, the gigantic terminal building at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport gained fame as part of West Berlin's tenuous life-line to the world during the Berlin Airlift in the late 1940s.

But 60 years later, the skies above Tempelhof are, for much of the day, quiet. Only a trickle of private planes and short-haul commercial flights currently use the airport. The hush, though, belies the magnitude of a last-ditch effort to keep the facility open -- an effort that unites those concerned with the airport's past and those who are looking out for Berlin's economic future.

"The history of the building, the need to protect this place as a memorial -- those are issues that older people respond to," says Thomas Böhme, a 55-year-old former pilot who is part of the Society for the Protection of City Airport Tempelhof (ICAT). "But for the future, we're talking about a building that will not work economically except as an airport."

Böhme's group is behind an improbable grassroots campaign to force a city-wide referendum on whether Tempelhof should remain a functioning airport. The group spent much of the winter collecting signatures from 200,000 Berliners to force the vote, now set to be held on April 27. But the task ahead is no less Herculean. One-quarter of Berlin's registered voters -- around 600,000 people -- must vote in support of the airport in April. And success would merely oblige city leaders to reconsider the airport's fate.

"Yes, it’s a long shot. But it's the only way we'll ever fill up this terminal. It's worth our work," says Dieter Schlobach, ICAT treasurer.

Calling the effort to keep Tempelhof open a "long shot" is a profound understatement. Berlin courts have repeatedly rejected earlier efforts to extend its life, and both the federal government and Berlin's parliament have signed off on plans to collapse Berlin's three airports -- including Tegel, another Airlift-era facility that currently handles a significant chunk of the city's flights -- into one. The new Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport is set to open in 2011 where a third airport, Schönefeld, now sits on the city's eastern fringe.

'No VIP Airport!'

The courts are backed by a new citizens' group that formed as the pro-Tempelhof referendum gained steam. Made up of ecologists and Berliners who live in Tempelhof’s shadow, the Alliance for a Flight-Free Tempelhof (BIFT) supports the scheduled closure and wants to see the 400-hectare (988-acre) airfield converted into a park.

"It's important that the site be available not just for the interests of some mini-group, but for everyone in the city," said Carmen Schultze of Friends of the Earth Germany, a group that belongs to the alliance.

BIFT has launched its own ground operation in advance of the April vote and has hung 40,000 signs on lampposts across Berlin. The placards feature slogans like, "No way will I vote for a VIP-Airport!" The alliance can also count on the support of politicians from the left side of the spectrum. As to Tempelhof's historical significance, they argue that beyond its role in the Airlift, the site has an equally dark history that leaves nothing to celebrate. Indeed, the airport's monstrous terminal, a protected landmark, housed a World War II factory which used slave labor to produce airplanes for the war effort.

But Berlin conservatives say the site's history makes it all the more imperative that it be kept open. The airport, they argue, is an important symbol of West Berlin's close relationship with the United States. America, after all, was the driving force behind the airlift, which saw hundreds of thousands of flights delivering millions of tons of supplies between June 1948 and May 1949, after the Soviet Union blocked overland access from West Germany.

While the historical significance of Tempelhof has heightened the rhetoric used by those on both sides of the debate, at its root, the problem of what to do with the site has more to do with to the airport's financial present and the future of Berlin's economy.

More Costs for the City

Currently, the airport loses some €10 million per year for the Berlin Airports consortium, a publicly owned group that operates Berlin's three airfields. Furthermore, the building -- which stretches for over a kilometer around one end of the airfield -- costs as much as €25 million per year to maintain, according to ICAT. Once the airport shuts down, those maintenance costs will fall to the city.

Which is why Berlin's politicians are so keen on transforming the facility into a money-generating venture. Indeed, the Christian Democrats and the business-friendly Free Democrats point to the fact that the airport, located just six kilometers from the city center, is perfectly located for business travellers.

Friedbert Pflüger, head of the CDU in Berlin, has likened Tempelhof to London's City Airport. He says it would be a "big mistake" to dismiss the airport's economic potential. "If Tempelhof closes, other cities will be the winners," says Pflüger.

The city has also solicited proposals from business. One concept would turn the site into a new film studio to complement the one in Babelsberg on the western edge of the capital. And last year, Berlin's Mayor Klaus Wowereit shot down a proposal from a team of American investors led by cosmetics mogul Ronald Lauder to convert the airfield into a fly-in medical clinic and conference center.

Lauder reiterated his offer this week, saying it could represent a €350 million investment ($550 million) and up to 1,500 new jobs for the city, but Wowereit is unlikely to be swayed. He has said that neither an exclusive clinic nor an exclusive airport have a place in Berlin, and suggested that plans for a re-vamped Tempelhof would only cater to private flights used by businesspeople and wealthy travellers.

"I dare say that people would not be for this if they knew what was being proposed," said Wowereit. He also argues that keeping Tempelhof open for flights poses a threat to the city's planned international airport at Schönefeld.

A Bike on the Autobahn

The prolonged debate has become something of a political albatross for Wowereit. He has spent years pointing to environmental and noise issues that argue against having an airport in the heart of Berlin. He also maintains that Berlin's relatively low volume of annual flights -- around 25 million passengers a year compared to 140 million in London -- doesn't justify a second airport. When lawmakers revisited the dispute earlier this month in the city's parliament, Wowereit sounded almost exasperated.

"The Senate and the members of this assembly have made a definitive decision to support Berlin Brandenburg International Airport in Schönefeld as Berlin's sole airport, and to close Tempelhof and Tegel. There is no other option," he said.

According to Böhme, though, ICAT is not proposing to create a haven for privileged flyers, but to siphon smaller flights -- those up to 50 tons, or around 100 passengers -- away from the parade of larger planes moving through the new international airport, known as BBI. In that sense, he argues, Tempelhof could turn into a valuable compliment to BBI.

"Sending the small planes to BBI would be the same as riding a bike on the Autobahn," he says.